IGMIDIO HIDALGO and MARTINA ROSALES, petitioners, vs.
POLICARPIO HIDALGO, SERGIO DIMAANO, MARIA ARDE, SATURNINO HIDALGO, BERNARDINA
MARQUEZ, VICENTE DIMAANO, ARCADIA DIMAANO, TEODULA DIMAANO, THE REGISTER OF
DEEDS and THE PROVINCIAL ASSESSOR OF THE PROVINCE OF BATANGAS, respondents
G.R. No. L-25326
| May
29, 1970
FACTS:
Policarpio Hidalgo was the owner of the
22,876 sq. m. and 7,638 sq. m. agricultural parcels of land in Lumil, San Jose,
Batangas. Policarpio sold the 22,876 sq. m. parcel of land together with 2 other
parcels of land for P4,000.00.
Petitioners-spouses Igmidio Hidalgo and Martina Rosales, as tenants
thereof, alleging that the parcel worked by them as tenants is fairly worth
P1,500.00, "taking into account the respective areas, productivities,
accessibilities, and assessed values of three lots”, seek by way of redemption
the execution of a deed of sale for the same amount of P1,500.00 by
respondents- vendees in their favor.
Respondent-vendor also sold the 7,638 sq.
m. parcel of land P750.00 and petitioner-spouses Hilario Aguila and Adela
Hidalgo as tenants thereof, seek by way of redemption the execution of a deed
of sale for the same price of P750.00 by respondents vendees in their favor.
Since petitioners-tenants have for
several years been working on the lands as share tenants, no 90-day notice of
intention to sell the lands for the exercise of the right of pre-emption
prescribed by section 11 of the Agricultural Land Reform Code was given by respondent-vendor to
petitioners-tenants. Subsequently, the deeds of sale executed by
respondent-vendor were registered by respondents register of deeds and
provincial assessor of Batangas in the records of their respective offices
notwithstanding the non-execution by respondent- vendor of the affidavit required
by section 13 of the Land Reform Code. The actions for redemption were timely
filed on March 26, 1965 by petitioners-tenants within the two-year prescriptive
period from registration of the sale, prescribed by section 12 of the said
Code.
The agrarian court rendered on July 19,
1965 two identical decisions dismissing the petitions for redemption.
ISSUE:
Whether or not share tenants are entitled
to redeem the parcel of land they are working from the purchasers thereof,
where no notice was previously given to them by the vendor, who was their
landholder, of the latter’s intention to sell property
RULING:
The very essence of the Agricultural Land
Reform Code is the abolition of agricultural share tenancy as proclaimed in its
title. Section 4 of the Code expressly outlaws agricultural share tenancy as
"contrary to public policy" and decrees its abolition. Section 2 of
the Code expressly declares it to be the policy of the State, inter alia,
"to establish owner cultivatorship and the economic family- size farm as
the basis of Philippine agriculture and, as a consequence, divert landlord
capital in agriculture to industrial development; to achieve a dignified
existence for the small farmers free from pernicious institutional restraints
and practices; and to make the small farmers more independent, self-reliant and
responsible citizens, and a source of strength in our democratic society,"
It was error, therefore, for the agrarian
court to state the premise after the Land Reform Code had already been enacted,
that "the systems of agricultural tenancy recognized in this jurisdiction
are share tenancy and leasehold tenancy." A more accurate statement of the
premise is that' based on the transitory provision in the first proviso of
section 4 of the Code, i.e. that existing share tenancy contracts are allowed
to continue temporarily in force and effect, notwithstanding their express
abolition, until whichever of the following events occurs earlier: (a) the end
of the agricultural year when the National Land Reform Council makes the
proclamation declaring the region or locality a land reform area; or (b) the
shorter period provided in the share tenancy contracts expires; or (c) the
share tenant sooner exercises his option to elect the leasehold system.
In anticipation of the expiration of
share tenancy contracts—whether by contractual stipulation or the tenant's
exercise of his option to elect the leasehold system instead or by virtue of
their nullity—occuring before the proclamation of the locality as a land reform
area, the same section 4 has further declared in the third proviso thereof that
in such event; the tenant shall continue in possession of the land for
cultivation and "there shall be presumed to exist a leasehold relationship
under the provisions of this Code."
The foregoing exposes the error of the
agrarian court's corollary premise that "a share tenant is altogether
different from a leasehold tenant" The agrarian court's dictum that
"their respective rights and obligations are not co-extensive or co-equal
"refer to their contractual relations with the landowner, with respect to
the contributions given, management, division or payment of the produce.
But the Land Reform Code forges by
operation of law, between the landowner and the farmer—be a leasehold tenant or
temporarily a share tenant—a vinculum juris with certain vital juridical
consequences, such as security of tenure of the tenant 'and the tenant's right
to continue in possession of the land he works despite the expiration of the
contract or the sale or transfer of the land to third persons, and now, more
basically, the farmer's pre-emptive right to buy the land he cultivates under
section 11 of the Code as well as the right to redeem the land, if sold to a
third person without his knowledge, under section 12 of the Code.
This is an essential and indispensable
mandate of the Code to implement the State's policy of establishing
ownercultivatorship and to achieve a dignified and self-reliant existence for
the small farmers that would make them a pillar of strength of our Republic.
Aside from expropriation by the Land Authority of private agricultural land for
resale in economic family-size farm units "to bona fide tenants, occupants
and qualified farmers," the purchase by farmers of the lands cultivated by
them, when the owner decides to sell the same—through rights of pre-emption and
redemption—are the only means prescribed by the Code to achieve the declared
policy of the State.
The agrarian court therefore facilely let
itself fall into the error of concluding that the right of redemption (as well
as necessarily the right of pre-emption) imposed by the Code is available to
leasehold tenants only and excludes share tenants for the literal reason that
the Code grants said rights only to the "agricultural lessee and to nobody
else." For one, it immediately comes to mind that the Code did not mention
tenants, whether leasehold or share tenants, because it outlaws share tenancy
and envisions the agricultural leasehold system as its replacement.
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